Juvenile sentences: Court made right call on crimes by youngsters

The Patriot News, fileThe Supreme Court made the right decision on mandatory life sentences for juveniles.

Juveniles lack the maturity and judgment of adults. It’s a basic, seemingly self-evident fact of life.

It’s one reason kids can’t vote or ¤¤¤¤¤¤join the military before the age of 18. We recognize that young people need to reach a certain age to make choices and understand the consequences of their decisions and actions.

But for too long, the criminal justice system and too many lawmakers have failed to make those distinctions.

More than 2,500 people who committed crimes as juveniles have served life sentences without any possibility of parole.

Nearly 500 people sit in Pennsylvania’s prisons with mandatory life sentences for crimes committed as juveniles, more than any other state. It’s hard to imagine a more undesirable top ranking.

Thankfully, a recent decision from the U.S. Supreme Court demands a change in the way juveniles are sentenced.

In a 5-4 ruling, the high court determined that mandatory life sentences for juvenile offenders are unconstitutional.

The justices noted that with mandatory sentences, judges cannot consider mitigating factors such as age, home life, family pressures and the influence of peers.

The Supreme Court decision doesn’t mean that offenders who committed violent crimes will immediately waltz out of prison, and they shouldn’t. To be sure, some have committed horrific crimes.

In 2003, Steven Pannebaker killed four members of his Juniata County family. He was 16 when he gunned down his father, mother and two younger sisters. In 2007, Alec Devon Kreider was only 16 when he killed a classmate and his classmate’s parents.

Such unfathomable crimes demand severe punishment. Some offenders might deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison, even if they committed a crime before they turned 18.

But the justices affirmed that a life sentence for a juvenile should be rare.
When it comes to a juvenile, a life sentence should never be an automatic decision.

Justice Elena Kagan aptly summed up the problem with mandatory life sentences for juveniles: “Every juvenile will receive the same sentence as every other — the 17-year-old and the 14-year-old, the shooter and the accomplice, the child from a stable household and the child from a chaotic and abusive one.”

According to Amnesty International, the United States is the only country in the world that has given mandatory life sentences to juveniles in recent years. That’s a chilling thought.

Already, lawyers across the state — and nationwide — are filing appeals of sentences. Judges hopefully will consider such cases carefully, weighing the potential for rehabilitation.

And judges also must acknowledge the families of victims.

Those families face the painful prospect of entering a courtroom and confronting the person who tore their lives apart.

Still, we agree with Bill DiMasco, executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, that some sentenced as juveniles, given time and counseling, should earn a chance to be released.

“From the standpoint of human redemption — people who commit acts when they are 14, 15, 16 years old will do things they would never consider doing at 30, 40, 50 years old,” DiMasco said. “People do change.”

The high court’s opinion affirms that judges can do what they are supposed to do: Evaluate all the factors and make a determination that’s just.